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Tag: body shaming

This is actually an article in the Huffington Post. I’m not going to link to it since they don’t need the advertising clicks, but this is the world we live in: not only are women body-shamed for having bodies, our clothing is policed for looking like “chocolate wrappers”.

Celebrity women get trashed in the media for going out in jeans or trackie bottoms, but also shamed for dressing up in designer clothes for events they are required to wear. As women, we need to stop consuming media that shames women for their bodies. We may not be able to stop it but we can certainly cause financial harm to such online media by refusing to click.

I genuinely like Chris Rock. He is incredibly funny and usually on the ball with things which are important. Okay, he frequently misses the whole issue of sexism with his tendency to reinforce it in the same breath as claiming to want a better future for his daughters. He is, however, not on my list of Dudes: the hypocrites who think that voting for Obama and claiming to be pro-choice cancels out any violence against women that they perpetrate. [I’m speaking to you here Zack Braff]. Chris Rock is one of those men who should be too intelligent to be debasing themselves with misogynistic jokes but do it anyways. Every time he opens his mouth, I twitch waiting for the inevitable Kim Kardashian joke. Now, I’ve never actually see the Kardashian show[s?] because I don’t do reality TV. I think it’s vile, nasty bullying of vulnerable people. Anyway, apparently, Chris has joined in with the Kim Kardashian bashing which disappoints me. And, pisses me off. I have no idea what Kim Kardashian has done to deserve such nasty bullying off everyone but unless she’s a serial killer or personally paying the entire costs of the War on Women, I’m going to guess she doesn’t deserve it. So, Chris, you need to stop hangin’ with misogynists. They are stupid and you, supposedly, are not.Good Hair is classic Chris Rock. He is equally snarky and lovely. Plus, it has Maya Angelou and who doesn’t love Maya Angelou? I only have two real criticisms. The first is that Rock doesn’t ever really delve into the issue of men’s hair. It is referenced by Reverend Al Sharpton but many of the other men in the documentary had shaved heads which left me wondering about how much pressure men feel under to have “real” hair. But, that’s not a very fair criticism since the documentary was about African-American women’s hair and constructions of beauty. This is where I had a problem because I think Rock pulled his punches.Rock should have been using the terms racism and misogyny but he didn’t. He talked about the construction of beauty being about white women with beautiful hair and how damaging it was to the self-esteem of young African-American women. He also talked a lot about how expensive it was for African-American women to buy weaves but, at $1000 minimum each, how many can actually afford to buy weaves for their hair? Or, can afford to buy the “relaxing” cream [which is effectively poison]? Again, I felt Rock skirted around the issue of poverty. He just didn’t make the clear correlation between race, poverty and the construction of beauty. Maybe I’m asking too much of Rock and expecting a feminist critique but I just felt he didn’t push hard enough. I don’t mean he should have questioned the women he interviewed harder. One of the nice things about Rock is that he genuinely seems to enjoy chatting to pretty much anyone and actually listens to what they say [rather than what he thinks they should be saying]. I just wanted Rock to go farther with his own political analysis. I wanted him to be bell hooks and Audre Lorde. I wanted Rock to talk about more than his daughters.I wanted to hear a male celebrity talk about misogyny, racism and poverty.I didn’t want him to subtle; I wanted to hear him say those words. I wanted him to call out the billion dollar industry which profits from racism and misogyny.Most of all, I wanted to hear Chris Rock yelling “Fuck the Patriarchy” so I could mail it back to him and politely request that he stop being so rude about Kim Kardashian. Instead, he ended the documentary with a quote from Ice-T, a man who is not noted for his respect for women.

Took Small to see The Lorax this morning. It was actually pretty funny in places and less patronising than Ferngully with the whole destruction of the forest killing the planet story line. Thing is, The Lorax still felt obligated to go with two utterly stupid and dire tropes: the fat, stupid sidekick and the “it’s only okay to hit girls that aren’t pretty”. I know I complained about the trailer to The Lorax previously but it just annoyed me even more in the film. This is what I said about the trailer:

It was the same tired old joke about not threatening violence against women unless they don’t ‘look’ like women: that is too say fat. Because, it’s just totally okay for children’s films to reinforce the same tired old stereotypes about women only having value if they are skinny and pretty. Or, that women can only ‘look’ like women if they are skinny. Or something.

It would be nice if just one film directed at children didn’t include threats of violence and gender stereotyping. Is that really so much to ask? Is Hollywood so lacking in imagination that they can’t imagine a world where people don’t run about threatening to punch anyone who disagrees with them or denigrating those who don’t fit Patriarchal Constructions of Fuckability?

The normalising of male violence is harmful for everyone. It teaches boys that they are nothing but violent thugs incapable of self-control and tells girls they are responsible for the violence because they aren’t pretty enough or nag too much. And, this is without going into the whole basis of the plot which is that boys only do dangerous and stupid things to get the attention of girls. Because, boys are never, ever responsible for their own bad decisions. Always has to be the fault of a woman, [and its worth pointing out that the young boy is being raised by a single mother whilst the man who caused the tree crisis was being raised by an emotionally abusive mother reinforcing the “woman are responsible for male behaviour trope on several levels].The fat, slow, and dim sidekick in The Lorax was a bear; one who just couldn’t keep up either intellectually or physically. It didn’t anything to the story. It wasn’t funny. It was just the same old pick on the fat kid shit which is everywhere. It was the same demeaning behaviour as evidenced in most Hollywood comedies which are anything but. Being overweight doesn’t make one stupid and it’s unbelievably tedious to see this trope used over and over again. The Lorax could have been a brilliant film; instead in went for crass jokes and offensive stereotypes. Plus ca change and all that.

I may actually have laid down in shock after reading this article in the Independent suggesting that, contrary to pornographers and other over-entitled male narcissists, pubic hair probably serves a purpose. An actual purpose which isn’t just to annoy men who watch way too much porn [which, between, not so good for sexual performance]. Okay, it’s only anecdotal evidence by Emily Gibson identified as a family physician and some director of a random student health centre at a large American university, but, still, its a discussion about the harm caused by the pornographication of women’s bodies rather than a celebration of vajazzling.

The removal of pubic hair, and the gluing of sparkles, is about forcing women to fail in striving to meet the extremely harsh Patriarchal Fuckability Test. It’s just another way to make women feel shite about their bodies [on top of the whole being too fat, too old, and too smart shite]. We need to get over this idea that vaginas and vulvas are intrinsically dirty and need to be shaved and plucked and douched and bleached and cut and glittered to make them worthy of the All Mighty Penis.

Gibson may only be able to prove that pubic hair can decrease abrasion and injury caused by friction as well as protection from bacterial infections and not that pubic hair can decrease the transmissions of STDs but the point is women, in positions of power, are asking these questions and getting major international newspapers to carry the articles. Women are taking back ownership over their vaginas and vulvas; from pornographers, plastic surgeons, and men who aren’t very good at oral sex. We need to start normalising and celebrating the differences in women’s bodies. Because we do our children immense harm by allowing them to grow up thinking menstrual blood is disgusting and childbirth makes vaginas unfuckable. We need to start recognising that labiaplasty, like female genital mutilation, is a harmful cultural practise as outlined by the UN. We need to start loving our bodies.

I know this because @IndiaKnight, and others, are gleefully insulting her “camel toe” on Twitter. Now, this could be some of my weird-arse feminist principles coming into play, but Angela Merkel’s vagina or vulva or whatever genitalia is currently being belittled is possibly the least interesting thing about her. [Unless she has a corn on her toe. I don’t actually care about that either.] The important thing here is that she’s the Chancellor of Germany; like the only financially stable country in Europe right now.

The woman has actual fiscal power to help end the recession [not to mention that pesky issue of the more women in power, the more likely issues specific to women are to get government attention]. Merkel is a hell of a lot smarter than The Double Nincompoop Act of Sarkozy and Berlusconi and I thank the Goddess everyday that those two are gone. But, I don’t remember Twitter insulting the various genitalia of those two and, frankly, their sexually predatory behaviour is well-documented.

But, Merkel has a vagina. And, it doesn’t matter what she does or how she does it. All that matters is that, today, Merkel has a “camel toe” and, therefore, is an object of ridicule. My crazy-arse Feminist principles don’t care how Merkel looks. I care what she says and the consequences of her actions. They have the real ability to cause serious harm or fix a serious situation. Her vagina does not. So let’s stop playing the Patriarchal Fuckability Game and start worrying about what Merkel is doing [along with every other European politician] right now.

Hustler being disgusting and despicable is par for the course. Larry Flynt is horrible, vicious misogynist. I would like to say that there is nothing he can do which would surprise me but it would be a lie. I am not going to link any images because, frankly, I find them so triggering that I refuse to have them linked on my blog nor do I want to increase traffic to any misogynistic site which might have the images linked. I would like to see publications like Hustler banned and their proprietors and editors required to pay huge fines to support rape crisis centres and shelters.

Hustler’s current attack on conservative S.E. Cupp, rather like the attacks on Tory MP Louise Mensch, is based entirely on misogynistic constructions of sex/gender and the punishment of women who dare to have opinions and make them publicly. Now, personally, I don’t agree with pretty much anything Cupp and Mensch say. I find their views abhorrent but finding their views abhorrent is not an excuse to sexually humiliate, bully and intimidate women. It is this kind of behaviour that silences women. It encourages and perpetuates the rape culture which violates the lives of so many women and children. Allowing this kind of smear campaign to go unchallenged is a passive affirmation that it is acceptable to treat women in this manner.

As such, I have signed the petition by the Women’s Media Center denouncing Hustler for its vile attack on S.E. Cupp. The media release from the Women’s Media Center is below:

Gloria Steinem, Co-Founder of the Women’s Media Center, said of the incident, “As another of the countless women who have been attacked, defamed and endangered by Larry Flynt and Hustler over the years, I am proud to stand with S.E. Cupp and defend her right to free speech and respect. One has only to look at Flynt’s record of woman-hatred and the depiction of sexualized violence against females–including children, as in such famous Hustler features as ‘Chester the Molester’–to see that the only thing more damaging than Flynt’s hatred would be his approval.”

Robin Morgan, also co-Founder of the Women’s Media Center, had this to say: “In Hustler’s worst degrading, woman-hating tradition, the magazine has done it yet again. Larry Flynt and the editors of Hustler–with the apparent IQs of inebriated gnats–clearly cannot grasp a basic fact: When you demean one woman, you demean us all, and all of us fight back. The Women’s Media Center was founded to confront precisely this kind of vicious, unfunny, destructive representation of female human beings–whatever their political position, and whether or not we agree with it.”

Julie Burton, President of the Women’s Media Center, said, “It makes no difference that Larry Flynt thinks he is opposing the defunding of Planned Parenthood. His crude, sexist attacks on Ms. Cupp demean all women–and undermine his claim to support women’s rights. As a pro-choice, feminist organization, we do not agree with Ms. Cupp’s stance. But the sexualization of women in the media is not a partisan issue–it’s an ongoing problem that makes it harder for women on both sides of the aisle to run for office and be taken seriously as political commentators and media makers.”

“We urge all men and women, regardless of your political beliefs, to stand up against the misogyny Hustler wants the country to accept as par for the course,” Burton said. “The only way our culture moves against sexism is when stand as one and say this is unacceptable.”

To join the Women’s Media Center’s call to stand with Ms. Cupp and against media misogyny, sign the petition at www.change.org/standwithSE

The Huffington Post informs me that you are yet another thing which makes me unfuckable. Because along with everything else that is completely wrong with my body: the whole hairy, stretch marks, cellulite, fat because I no longer have the body of a pre-pubescent child; which, coincidentally, is probably because I haven’t been a pre-pubescent child for about 20 years issue. But, I digress. I now know that you, my dear visible vagina are a problem.

A problem with a solution; one that involves me spending money I don’t have on a weird plastic thingie that renders you smooth without labiaplasty [that thing which isn’t FGM because white women do it]. So, my dear visible vagina, you will no longer look ugly through my clothes and men will want to fuck me which is, obviously, the only thing worth thinking about. Ever.

I just have one query: how precisely does one remove “smoothegroove” without looking utterly fecking ridiculous? If the whole point of the beauty industry is to render me fuckable, why the hell would I want to wear something that will, no doubt, cause all sorts of unpleasant bacteria growth issues what with the whole it being a piece of plastic issue but, also, not come off in any manner that one could even construe as “sexy”? Am I supposed to do a lap dance whilst taking it off? Sneak off to the bathroom and remove it? Then where do I stick it? Leave it in the bathroom to scare off small children and insects? Or, are these only for women of a certain age who have no chance of pulling and therefore only deluding themselves?

I’m all confused but, on balance, I think I’m going to go with old skool India.Arie and stick with my dear visible vagina. After all, you’ve never called me fat, ugly, or unfuckable. And, seriously, who wants to pull a man who is only interested in you for your waxed and vajazzled vagina?

I think it’s obvious that I don’t read “women’s” magazines. I think I read Cosmo once when I was a teenager. It had an article on why swallowing sperm was bad: it’s high in calories. Because that’s what you should be thinking of when having sex: whether or not you will get “fat”. Not thinking about preventing STDs or ensuring that your relationship involves mutual respect and consideration so that both partners are sexually fulfilled without one doing something that makes them uncomfortable. Nope, swallowing is bad because it makes women fat. Course, that was 15 years ago. Considering the mainstreaming of porn, I’m sure swallowing is mandatory and those pesky calories can be covered by not eating anything else that day.

That is the purpose of women’s magazines: to make women realise how imperfect and pathetic they are and then flog them clothes, make-up and other assorted shite to make them feel like “real” women. It’s capitalism. Yes, some magazines like Marie Claire used to be pro-women including articles on work/life balance, sexual health and family relationships. But that isn’t what they sell now. Women’s magazines now sell that same old reductive, constrictive, and boring construction of female sexuality where we need to be sexually available to men at all times and concerned entirely with their orgasms whilst at the same time doing all the childcare, housework, and ensuring that we remain entirely fuckable by being malnourished and physically perfect at the same time.

This is without getting into the whole “celebrity” magazines which are marketed at women so we can laugh at Kerry Katona and buy make-up at the same time. The fact that Kerry Katona had a very public breakdown because she was ill is irrelevant. She gets to be what “good” women shouldn’t be and we can make ourselves feel better about being fat and ugly because we aren’t her. It is an incredibly destructive behaviour, pitting women against other women.

But, this is exactly what women’s magazines do. They reinforce the Patriarchy by using women to police other women. We become our own jailers; judging other women for not shaving their legs, having grey hair, or being overweight. Women buy magazines that call women who have literally just given birth fat. Women buy magazines that tell them they are frigid for not wanting to have anal sex. Women buy magazines that tell them to shut up in order to get a man. Women buy magazines that tell them that they can only be one of two things: fuckable or an invisible.

Personally, I am dancing in the streets at the demise of women’s magazines. I am glad that women are choosing to use blogs and twitter to talk with other women. Collaborative blogs like Jezebel, F-Word and Vagenda are replacing Cosmo. Teenager girls, who are surrounded by a pornographied culture which devalues and denigrates them, can access Scarleteen for information on sexuality and birth control. The Internet might be responsible for the explosion in violent pornography but it’s also the place of a deeply subversive underground of brilliant women writers who are fighting back; refusing to police the behaviour of other women in order to receive some crumbs from the Patriarchy’s table of plenty.

There is a reason the right-wing press spends so much time writing about the “nest of vipers” of Mumsnet and it’s not because we bake cookies. It’s because women talking to other women and supporting each other is what will destroy the Patriarchy. We aren’t just taking back our bodies. We are taking their power and it scares the shit out of the Patriarchy.

I’ve already blogged about my feelings on the furor over Samantha Brick’s articles in the Daily Mail a few weeks ago. I believe the Daily Mail set her up for a serious kicking because of the misogyny inherent in their organisation. They are the best selling newspaper in the UK because they feed on the very insecurities they encourage in their readers. They are vile.

I was shocked to see Caitlin Moran’s article in the Times today suggesting that the reaction Bricks got was nothing to do with Feminism. I would have thought it was patently obvious that insulting a woman for “not being as attractive as she thinks she is” is pretty much the essence of anti-feminist discourse. The Patriarchy requires women to police other women’s behaviour in order to survive. Buying into the discourse around Brick’s article just reinforces the Patriarchal structures which blame women for just not being fuckable enough: that would be 21 and malnourished.

Moran is a liberal Feminist and I generally disagree with her on a number of political issues, however this column just disappointed me with its lack of political analysis. Moran suggests that those of us who think this is a Feminist issue are deluded and that men are derided in a similar manner to women in these instances and that Brick was just acting like a “div”. Frankly, I think that’s twaddle:

I think we all knew this, really. It’s a Human Behaviour Check Yo’Self 101 not to go around quacking about how great you are, given that it’s wholly self-defeating. People who say, “I’m clever” tend to be thick, people who say, “I’m mad, me!” usually work in accounts and people who say they’re beautiful tend to be fairly average, but apt to spend a lot of money on trouser suits and highlights.

So, yes: let us be clear. There is a world of difference between “women doing something” and “it being a matter for feminism”. Lest we forget, feminism is “the advocacy of women’s rights on the basis of social, sexual and political equality to men”. It’s got nothing to do with a Daily Mail journalist on a deadline pointing to her arse and saying, “See this? It’s hawt.”

Feminism is about liberating women from oppression; an oppression reinforced by a Patriarchy that punishes women for not thinking they are ugly, pathetic and stupid. Any woman who suggests she might actually be anything but stupid is, therefore, asking to be humiliated and belittled.

As for the last part of her article where Moran suggests two subject which aren’t Feminist, well, I’m going to suggest she’s been drinking the Handmaiden Communion Wine.

1) Beauty routines. There’s been a spate of pieces recently questioning whether a true feminist can wax her legs, thread her eyebrows or wear make-up. While the beauty industry is, as all multibillion-dollar industries tend to be, built on trying to encourage profligate consumerist behaviour through unrealistic imagery, there’s nothing inherently un-feminist about wanting to muck around with how you look. How can there be? If there were then, theoretically, feminists wouldn’t be able to dress up at Hallowe’en, or go to fancy-dress parties rigged out as Scooby-Doo, either. While men can grow beards or wear hats, women can wear eyeliner and wax their legs. Besides, David Bowie wore make-up and it was ACE, ipso facto, Barry M.

2) Housework. “When,” I was asked, recently, “will feminism get my boyfriend to do his share of the housework?” Wow. While my slatternly nature is perfectly happy with putting off hoovering by saying, “I’m just waiting for a wholesale societal change to kick in. Come and hoover the front room, instead,” if you really want it hoovered, that might all take a while. Surely here, as with everything else in a relationship with two people in love, you just need to discuss your mutual wants and needs, then come to an agreement. You don’t need the advocacy of rights on the basis of social, sexual and political equality to men, dude. You just need a rota.

Beauty regimes and housework are the two most obvious ways that the Patriarchy reinforces the oppression of women. There is a reason why women who don’t starve themselves or wear shoes which deform their feet are considered unfuckable and it isn’t because they are frigid. It’s because their existence is a threat; as is the refusal of men to take equal responsibility for the required work to maintain a family. Women will never be equal to men as long as we are required to dress like fucktoys and scrub toilets because men can’t be arsed too.

I’m going to be completely honest here and say I didn’t read the Samantha Brick article. In fact, I spent most of the past two days somewhat perplexed as to why someone I had never heard of was dominating my twitter feed with comments about how ugly she is. Generally, I assume it’s someone from a reality TV program and then ignore. In this case, the level of misogyny and hatred leveled at a woman surprised me enough to google. Now, I have no intention of reading the article and, thereby, increasing the Daily Mail’s revenue streams as the misogyny, racism, homophobia and disablism they perpetuate on a daily basis is without equal. I do think the fallout of the Samantha Brick article is worth examining though, since it represents everything that is wrong with The Patriarchy.

I haven’t read either article written by Brick, but I’m fairly sure Harriet Walker’s article in today’s Independent would sum up my criticisms of the Daily Mail’s incurable misogyny:

Samantha Brick … A glutton for punishment perhaps; woefully misguided, certainly. Doing it for the money? You bet. But Samantha Brick’s message and martyrdom go right to the very heart of a patriarchal culture that we normally just put up with, one that makes everyone a little less well-disposed toward one another. Bear-baiting and cockfighting might be illegal, but woman-baiting is not, and certain institutions are content to cynically set up and sell ringside seats to the most horrid and vitriolic of catfights. …

Brick is clearly an insecure and socially inept sort of person; she’s also patently not as beautiful as she thinks she is. But that’s the point: Brick is a witless puppet for a male hegemony that derives its power partly from the myth that all women everywhere are endlessly patronising and hurting each other. That women don’t like each other, especially if one happens to be more attractive, is “a taboo that needed shattering”, says Brick. But the real maxim begging to be flouted here is that women – both the bullies and the bullied in this scenario – are set up for this kind of fall again and again. …

They’re much more likely to be subject to character assassinations because of this – but that has become the system we work by, and we don’t question why the men aren’t getting the same sort of flak. “Why must women be so catty? Men wouldn’t be bothered by this, I’m sure,” snorted one commentator on a radio chatshow about Brick. Yet many of those who were most acerbic about her on Twitter were men: public figures, comedians, TV stars and the like. …

Generally though, men are immune to this kind of baiting; they are not subject to anywhere near as much scrutiny as women are, either in terms of their appearance or the way they relate to each other. If a woman is sloppily dressed or fat, she can’t be taken seriously; if she’s beautiful, she’s a harpy; if she’s sexy, she’s up for it. The constraints are so embedded now that we take the bait without realising it’s a trap. And the newspaper that perpetuates it all rakes in the cash. …

This is why I find men like Gok Wan so destructive and Patriarchal. Now, I have no idea if Gok Wan has waded into this debate and, frankly, I have no intention wasting my time checking this out. But this situation is precisely why I loathe Wan’s Patriarchy-approved physical attractiveness as the only way to body confidence for women. It’s reductive, arrogant and completely lacking in basic human kindness. Sheila Jeffrey’s talks about women using Patriarchy-approved tools like make-up and high heels as armor against sexualised humiliation and bullying and this is precisely the type of behavior Wan insists is “beneficial” to women. It might be “protective” for women to engage in Patriarchy-approved behavior [and judging individual women for wearing make-up/heels/spanx is unfeminist as Jeffreys rightly points out], but we can not pretend that it’s not a problem for fear of hurting someone’s feelings. That isn’t an excuse to be deliberately rude but rather recognising that the Patriarchy functions by isolating and belittling women.

The Daily Mail set Samantha Brick up to fail as Gok Wan does weekly in his “truss yourself up in some spanx, throw on some high heels that will damage your feet the same way Chinese foot-binding did for a millenium and pretend that make-up is what separates you from poor self-confidence”. Jeffreys doesn’t argue that wearing make-up is the same as plastic surgery or foot-binding but rather that they all exist on a continuum of woman-hating which makes women’s bodies the visible sign of The Patriarchy. What Wan perpetuates is those harmful Traditional Cultural Practices under the UN definition which, as Jeffreys points out, is generally only applied to non-Western practices despite labiaplasty in the “West” having the same consequences as female genital mutilation which is constructing female sexuality as only for the benefit for men by removing/ decreasing women’s pleasure.

We need to stop focussing on whether or not Samantha Brick meets the patriarchal-approved definition of physical beauty and start looking at the reasons why women who do not meet it are punished by becoming unfuckable. We need to stop celebrating breast implants which decrease sexual pleasure and the ability to breast-feed as a “good” thing when it is nothing more than self-harm by proxy. We need to start celebrating women for being women; for being strong, beautiful, incredible and so very intelligent. All that the Tale of Samantha Brick proves is that the Patriarchy hates women. Let’s stop buying into the Patriarchy’s discourse and make our own and be that very powerful Feminist armed resistance of women loving and supporting women.